DANIEL JANOYAN'S POETRY


TO MY ALMA MATER, ARMENIAN COLLEGE OF CALCUTTA
 
Written by Daniel Janoyan
Baghdad, Iraq, May 10, 1961
 
On a plain stone
Under the clock
In letters of gold
Thus they had wrote.
 
*Menatsakan, *Aswadsadoor
Were the founders of this school,
Their memories will never die
And be immortal as the age of time.
 
*Vartan, so was *Muradkhanian,
Buried many decades ago,
But like two streams of different births
They united and as a river flowed.
 
And like a river they carried on
With noble thoughts in mind
That still murmur for years to come
And live as they had done.
 
 
* Christian and surnames of the founders of Armenian College Philantgropic Academy, Calcutta, India in 1821.

DEDICATED TO FERRAHIAN HIGH SCHOOL*
20TH ANNIVERSAY

Written by Daniel Janoyan
Encino, CA, May 15, 1984

Nineteen, sixty-four
Was the year for
Armenians on this shore
To think about a school for us all.

Thinking about it
Was not enough.
What we did need
Were leaders who were fit
To lead their people
With firm belief in their deed -
That Armenians are worth nothing
Without their language and history.

Some put forth a big question
For mistakenly they thought
Armenians can never at all
Keep their identity
In this vast country;
Armenians it was claimed
Can only keep going
In a smaller community.

But in nineteen sixty-four
With leading teachers and benefactors around
An Armenian school was indeed found.
A school, Armenian in all its hopes,
A school, Armenian in all its efforts,
A school, Armenian in whatever it has,
A school, Armenian in whatever it does.

It is indeed the Holy Martyrs
Armenian High School
Which in nineteen sixty-four
Started with only twelve
Now, in nineteen eighty-four
Boasting six-hundred and forty-five.

The Armenian Diaspora hope and spirit
Is surely here at the Ferrahian.
Here, at this Armenian Home
Well in the shade of
The Holy Martyrs Armenian Church.

* The Holy Martyrs and Ferrahian High School is the first school founded in Los Angeles and is located in Encino, California. Mr Gabriel Injejigian, the well known Armenian educator, was very instrumental in making this dream come true and in fact he was the first principal and held on to this position for almost twenty-five years until his retirement. The author of this poem also has had the privelidge of working as an English Language teacher for the acaddemic year 1983 - 1984.

NOTE: Please refer to Garo Bedrossian's "Ferrahian School" under Miscellaneous in this web site.

CALL ME JUST ONCE

Written by Daniel Janoyan
Glendale, California, June 20, 1988

It's been sometime since I saw you last;
I'm still thinking of you and the past.
The time we spent together went on so very fast,
I didn't have the chance to tell you last
How much I love you and you know it right.

Do please write to me and write to me once;
I beg you call me and call me just once;
See for yourself how things will change for once
How promising and beautiful life will be at once
Simply if you open your heart to me just once.

Don't let obstacles overcome us both -
More than friendship-bonds brought us together;
More than divine power kept us together -
Strong and loving and always together -
Why should we then be away from one another?

 
 

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